Book
Российская экономика в 2008 году. Тенденции и перспективы
The review provides a detailed analysis of main trends in Russia's economy in 2008. The paper contains five big sections that highlight single aspects of Russia's economic development: the socio-political context; the monetary and credit and financial spheres; the real sector; social sphere; institutional challenges. The paper employs a huge mass of statistical data that forms the basis of original computation and numerous charts.
This paper puts forth a comprehensive set of measures to address the current economic crisis, prevent its further aggravation and ensure sustained and ongoing development of the Russian economy. In this study we seek to adopt the viewpoint of common sense and keep free from political and ideological bias. This is why we believe the proposed solutions should be implemented by any reasonable government irrespective of its political coloration. This text presents our vision of the Russian economy and its problems.
Using data on foreign borrowing, I identify Russian banks that were affected by the sudden stop of external financing caused by the Lehman Brothers’ collapse. Applying the difference-in-difference method, I compare these «affected» banks to «unaffected» ones and find that the Russian Central Bank’s (CBR) anti-crisis financial assistance primarily went to the former group. Tracing the impact of the CBR’s liquidity infusions on banks’ portfolio allocation decisions, I find that banks used CBR funds not only to pay out foreign debt, but also to accumulate cash deposits in non-resident banks. I also find that affected banks increased their holdings of market securities significantly more than unaffected ones, which suggests that the CBR’s bailout policies impacted their risk-taking strategies. While there was no significant difference in corporate lending growth between the two groups after the sudden stop, lending to borrowers with weaker banking relationships (individuals and entrepreneurs) decreased more among affected banks.
The book is dedicated to the general trends in Russian business.
The article considers the processes of progress in production and service sectors and answers the question how and thanks to what service sector of Russian economy left the productive one behind (concerning contribution in GDP of our country). The rates of development of service sector turned out to be so high firstly - as a reason of peculiarities of new Russian economy, which historically was built on the market principles and was developing in conditions of investment resources deficit, secondly - as a reason of system differences between «physical» goods and services as an object of sale. Nowadays Russia faces an unusual symbiosis: effective service companies, operating in hard competitive sphere with average profitability and non-affective from the point of management industrial companies, which thanks to monopolistic pricing have great profitability, providing profits of Russian budget and determining a macroeconomic situation.
This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research
Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE).
2 . With the exception of medical facilities belonging to privatized enterprises.
3 . Fundholding of a primary care unit is a scheme of public health care funding that provides a virtual budget to a primary care unit (general practitioner, outpatient clinic, etc.) for purchasing selected clinical and diagnosis services, such as minor surgery, physiotherapy, and common endoscopic procedures (Langenbrunner et al. 2005). Th is scheme creates incentives for increasing effi ciency of primary care and for containing excessive supply of diagnostic and inpatient services. Fundholding is used in the United Kingdom and Estonia, as well as in some Russian regions (Kaliningrad, Samara, and Perm).
There are a number of stereotypes regarding the investment attractiveness of Russian enterprises. Local companies often do not see any development prospects in Russia and complain at the unsatisfactory local institutional environment. However, the activity of multinational corporations (MNCs) in Russia serves as a clear evidence of its potential attractiveness as one of the BRICS markets (the so called "21st century markets"). This article discusses the activities of MNCs aimed to increase market representation in Russia, as well as the reasons for such behavior.
Smoking is a problem, bringing signifi cant social and economic costs to Russiansociety. However, ratifi cation of the World health organization Framework conventionon tobacco control makes it possible to improve Russian legislation accordingto the international standards. So, I describe some measures that should be taken bythe Russian authorities in the nearest future, and I examine their effi ciency. By studyingthe international evidence I analyze the impact of the smoke-free areas, advertisementand sponsorship bans, tax increases, etc. on the prevalence of smoking, cigaretteconsumption and some other indicators. I also investigate the obstacles confrontingthe Russian authorities when they introduce new policy measures and the public attitudetowards these measures. I conclude that there is a number of easy-to-implementanti-smoking activities that need no fi nancial resources but only a political will.
One of the most important indicators of company's success is the increase of its value. The article investigates traditional methods of company's value assessment and the evidence that the application of these methods is incorrect in the new stage of economy. So it is necessary to create a new method of valuation based on the new main sources of company's success that is its intellectual capital.
We address the external effects on public sector efficiency measures acquired using Data Envelopment Analysis. We use the health care system in Russian regions in 2011 to evaluate modern approaches to accounting for external effects. We propose a promising method of correcting DEA efficiency measures. Despite the multiple advantages DEA offers, the usage of this approach carries with it a number of methodological difficulties. Accounting for multiple factors of efficiency calls for more complex methods, among which the most promising are DMU clustering and calculating local production possibility frontiers. Using regression models for estimate correction requires further study due to possible systematic errors during estimation. A mixture of data correction and DMU clustering together with multi-stage DEA seems most promising at the moment. Analyzing several stages of transforming society’s resources into social welfare will allow for picking out the weak points in a state agency’s work.